In the summer of 1970, Keith King was a 19-year-old M-60 machine gunner with the U.S. Army's military police protecting supply convoys running ammunition along the dangerous routes to American troops fighting in South Vietnam's war-torn Central Highlands.

A year later, the Detroit native's enlistment term complete, King was told by those processing his transition to back to civilian life not to wear his uniform. It was an ugly era for those leaving the military. The public was weary of the war, and protesters were said to insult veterans.

Corporate America was skeptical of Vietnam veterans for many years, too, he said, and many companies didn't want to know about applicants' Vietnam service.

"It was detrimental to me in my business career. I took it off my rȁ;sumȁ;," said King, who spent decades in broadcast sales and advertising before launching an organization to certify veteran-owned businesses a few years ago.

Forty-five years after King left the Army, the pendulum has swung the other direction, and companies actively seek America's veterans of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. They're seen as offering skills and leadership that civilians don't always bring to the table, especially as the military has grown increasingly complex with technology and systems, said King, who now is president of the Detroit-based National Veteran Business Development Council.

Pipeline of returning vets slowing

The pipeline of veterans, however, could slow in coming years and create a demand for ex-service members that gives them an advantage in the workplace not seen since after World War II.

That's because the Pentagon is under orders to slash its manpower numbers to meet budgetary constraints. If opposition withing the ranks and on Capitol Hill don't hold sway, under the current budget the Army must cut 30,000 troops by fiscal 2018. That would leave 450,000 active-duty soldiers, making it the smallest U.S. Army since 1940, before conscription ballooned the ranks on the eve of World War II.

By the end of World War II, there were 12 million men in uniform, and the original G.I. Bill provided them money for college or vocational training along with low-interest home mortgages and loans to start a business.

"The educational portion of that is what really drove the change in society in America," King said. "We became a society with a high percentage of people leaving the farm and coming into the city. That created the suburbs. They came home, went to school, and had the opportunity to get jobs."

Courtesy of Keith King

King (right) stands alongside a U.S. Army military police armored car on a road in the Central Highlands of South Vietnam in 1970.

In 1968, at the height of the Vietnam War, the Pentagon had 3.5 million active-duty troops, including 1.5 million in the Army. The numbers have slowly dwindled since.

Today, the most recent headcount from the Pentagon shows 1.3 million men and women in the Army, Marine Corps, Air Force, Navy, and Coast Guard. That's the lowest troop strength since 2001, according to federal data.

Michigan has the 11th-largest veteran population, state and federal data show. There were 658,469 known veterans as of 2014, the most recent accounting available. The majority of those are Vietnam vets (237,675), followed by those who have served since 1990 (155,745).

The U.S. military's post-9/11 peak manpower was 1.43 million in 2003, with the Army's peak of 566,045 coming in 2010. The Army alone has cut 80,000 troops since 2012, and barring a change in policy under the next president (or another war), troop levels will fall further.

That means there will be a burst of new veterans in the workforce for a few years as the services cut troops, but then the flow of new vets will be reduced to numbers not seen since before 9/11.

A smaller pool

That's likely to mean the corporate world will compete for the smaller pool of veterans, especially those with technical skills and experience that translate into civilian jobs, King said.

"It's kind of like college recruiting. Some are in a place they can demand only the best academic students," he said. "When (vets) come out, they're going to come out with a pretty good opportunity for employment. We have a lot of demand. If they did IT security, computers, drones, worked on nuclear-powered submarines, we've got a job for them."

While America has had troops deployed in combat since 2001, the veterans of current conflicts don't account for the largest cohort of former service members. Veterans who served during World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam era accounted for 42 percent (8.9 million) of the total veteran population in 2015. The remainder are 7 million veterans of the first Gulf War and subsequent conflicts, and 5.3 million who served in peacetime, records show.

About 9 percent of all veterans are women.

"America has been pretty good at making veterans. We're not always good at taking care of them. We've been through drawdowns before, only to rebuild," King said. "I'm always a little cautious when we start talking about politicians and their decision on exactly how many active-duty troops they're going to let go. But assuming they do, we're going to have to reintegrate all these people into normal society."

A variety of skills, abilities

Whatever the manpower totals of the active-duty armed forces, veterans can offer employers a variety of skill experiences, such as expertise in computers, engines and other technology, medical training and leadership.

Enlisted personnel account for the largest portion of veterans. For example, for every 10 Marine enlisted personnel, there is one officer. In the more technically oriented Air Force, that ratio is close to three airmen for every one officer.

Enlisted personnel must have at least a high school diploma or GED, while officers have college degrees. Officers appeal to companies because they attend regular training and classroom instruction at military staff colleges and many earn advanced degrees during their military careers.

It's not just technical abilities that veterans offer, said Ken Huxley, a retired U.S. Air Force colonel who manages talent acquisition for Detroit-based Strategic Staffing Solutions and runs its veteran hiring initiative.

Veterans also offer employers organizational abilities, respect, loyalty and the ability to work in a structured environment, he said.

One factor affecting the pace of veteran hiring, Huxley said, is the nation's economic health.

"A lot will depend on where the economy is at the time these folks stream out of the military," he said. "That will determine how much opportunity these folks have."

If Washington continues to reduce troop strength and the stream of veterans into the workplace tightens, it's important that civilian employers continue their emphasis on hiring former service members, Huxley said.

"My hope is corporate America will continue its campaign to recognize and bring those veterans into their workforce," said Huxley, who joined the Air Force after graduating from Wayne State University in 1979 and retired in 2005 after a military career primarily in human relations management.

Whatever the economic situation, the federal government has made great strides in aiding new veterans, Huxley said. That always hasn't been the case.

"The Department of Defense and Veterans Administration do a pretty good job of providing programs that help veterans transition into the workforce or continue their education," he said.